The Maanga

Barkha Dutt, facing severe criticism from the bourgeois, has defended Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. She explained to her attackers that the viewers had the last word. When questioned if TRP ratings absolve her of the murders of the ATS Chief and an NSG Major, she showed how the question begged itself. Did not Narendra Modi get absolved by the voter in Gujarat? Now, he has Nano! she shrieked, showing broken glasses of an unknown building and calling people to action.

Asked if this meant a change in her political views, she said she never had one. She cited all her reports of the past decade to plead complete ignorance.

like this.

Each sentence in that write-up is made redundant by the previous sentence. Strangely, this problem with a finite starting point seems to behave perfectly even at its boundary.

Almost all writing that I come across is bad. I am not the well read types and maybe there are several good books I don’t know much about.

Is the argument that, my professional work is not out for judgment every day and hence it’s unfair for me judge Amit’s even valid?

When one is paid to do something, one has an excuse. After all, Amit Varma is alive. Roger Ebert, therefore, writes thus on ‘The Lives of Others’,

He doesn’t find a shred of evidence that Dreyman is disloyal. Not even in whispers. Not even in guarded allusions. Not even during pillow talk. The man obviously believes in the East German version of socialism, and the implication is that not even the Stasi can believe that. They are looking for dissent and subversion because, in a way, they think a man like Dreyman should be guilty of them. Perhaps they do not believe in East Germany themselves, but have simply chosen to play for the winning team.

Did he even watch the movie or was he told ‘mun kathai surukkam‘ by Sudhish Kamath?

Varma boy gives us a lesson,

Twenty20 cricket is filled with life-and-death urgency. There are just 120 deliveries in each innings, and every ball matters. There is no space for sloppiness or error. A single mistake can shift the momentum. The batsmen have to try and score off every ball, and have no time to settle down. The demands on the batsmen, bowlers and fielders are greater, not less.

There are six sentences in the paragraph — and each no different from the other. Pleonasm as a literary device to sustain livelihoods will soon be ended when people riot on the streets for rice.

Avataram writes in about the Infosys blog,

Global Footprint does not make a flat world company.

What is this? Vamanavataram? The entire infosys top management has taken to mixed metaphors since Thomas Friedman met Nandan Nilekani.

Their Annual Report lists Richa Govil as Group Manager – Go-to-Market (Marketing). And her criterion for a flat company is scheduling a call across three time zones.

Web 2.0’s greatest (and only) service has been: getting idiots their audience. Kiruba and Amit Varma make their living.

Quick, tell me the names of five Indian CEOs who blog? I’ll wait. No, really. I’ll wait. Take your time. Give up? I’m not surprised. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I asked this question to 10 different people and most couldn’t go beyond two names. Feel better?

No, that was not from a blog written in 2002.

A friend said ‘That Punkster woman can’t write one sentence without a cliche if her life depended on it.’

So, I opened that blog and read the first sentence: Stay tuned denizens, this blog will be back with a bang (yay, my propensity to spew out schmaltzy lines has not diminished!) very, very soon.

Yet how paradoxical it is, and how delightful, that Bangalore, a city that has leapt to prominence on the back of work outsourced by America, is now itself outsourcing from America - outsourcing glamour, no less.

I remember an author who once said she edits all her writing by imagining Tunku reading her work. Then, this explains all the bad writing.